WEBVTT 00:00:12.074 --> 00:00:15.764 ALFREDO JAAR: I strongly believe  in the power of a single idea. 00:00:17.800 --> 00:00:21.320 So the most difficult thing  for me is to arrive at the… 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:23.161 at the essence of what you want to say. 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.120 And when you reach that… 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.816 that essential idea, it’s… 00:00:28.341 --> 00:00:29.477 it’s extraordinary. 00:00:34.200 --> 00:00:37.165 I could say that everything I know about art 00:00:37.480 --> 00:00:40.501 I learn it when studying architecture. 00:00:42.120 --> 00:00:44.848 I approach art as an architect. 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:50.920 And as an architect I give myself  a program so this program will… 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:53.012 will take into account a space. 00:00:54.040 --> 00:00:57.000 Studying that space I...I… 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.829 I try to reach what we call  the essence of the space. 00:01:01.480 --> 00:01:03.760 And then I combine that essence, 00:01:03.760 --> 00:01:08.358 that finding with the essence  of what I’m trying to say. 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:16.600 Every single element has  been thought of in design. 00:01:16.600 --> 00:01:19.591 Nothing is arbitrary, absolutely nothing. 00:01:20.640 --> 00:01:24.320 The work has been fabricated by engineers or by… 00:01:24.320 --> 00:01:28.734 by people who have the right skills for  the right installations I’m working with. 00:01:30.360 --> 00:01:35.080 I’m at a point where the most  fascinating process for me is just 00:01:35.080 --> 00:01:37.810 to think, to think, to think and to think. 00:01:38.440 --> 00:01:44.059 And uhm, and then to let someone  else execute the project. 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:50.560 I have been incapable in my career to ever, 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:56.619 ever create a single work of art that  is just coming from my imagination. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:03.309 My imagination starts working based on research, 00:02:04.128 --> 00:02:11.040 based on a real life event, most of the time  a tragedy that I’m just starting to analyze, 00:02:11.040 --> 00:02:15.385 to reflect on it and to...to  accumulate information. 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:18.160 But the original impulse is… 00:02:18.160 --> 00:02:22.174 is this real life event to  which I’m trying to respond to. 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:28.151 So in the case of Rwanda, 00:02:29.122 --> 00:02:32.361 I started following the  tragedy from the beginning. 00:02:32.760 --> 00:02:37.360 I was outraged, how we were told,  this is happening, this is happening. 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:40.839 Yesterday 35,000 bodies were recovered, 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:45.440 they were floating on the  Kagera River, 35,000 bodies. 00:02:45.440 --> 00:02:49.473 And it was just a five-line story on page 7. 00:02:51.677 --> 00:02:55.480 So.... So I was following this story  and I reached a limit and I thought, 00:02:55.480 --> 00:02:57.800 well I have to go, I have to go. 00:02:57.800 --> 00:03:01.359 I have.... There is something  I would like to say about this. 00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:04.152 And then so I just went. 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:08.265 And it was the most horrific  experience in my life. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:11.680 I was getting into huge dilemmas, how… 00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:17.813 how do you present this, respecting the  dignity of the people you are focusing on? 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:24.448 So that’s why THE RWANDA PROJECT lasted six  years and it’s my longest project to date. 00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:33.240 I end up doing 21 different pieces within  those six years and they all failed. 00:03:33.240 --> 00:03:34.576 That’s why I kept going, 00:03:35.080 --> 00:03:41.856 looking for the perfect way to communicate  to my audience that experience. 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:44.228 And of course there is no way. 00:03:47.880 --> 00:03:54.021 There is this huge gap between reality  and its possible representations. 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:58.000 And that gap is impossible to close. 00:03:58.000 --> 00:04:02.250 So as artists we have to try different  strategies of representation. 00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:05.000 And THE SILENCE OF NDUWAYEZU 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:13.584 is just one more attempt to represent  a very difficult and tragic situation. 00:04:15.116 --> 00:04:18.416 When we say a million dead, it’s meaningless. 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:22.240 So the...the strategy was to… 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:28.166 to reduce the scale to a single human  being with a name, with a story. 00:04:28.880 --> 00:04:34.597 And that helps the audience  to identify with that person. 00:04:35.080 --> 00:04:41.600 And this process of identification  is...is fundamental to create empathy, 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:45.777 to create solidarity, to create  intellectual involvement. 00:04:47.855 --> 00:04:51.637 The text at the entrance tells you a story. 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:57.920 I visited a refugee camp  and Nduwayezu was seated on… 00:04:57.920 --> 00:05:03.328 on the stairs of a door...a school that  they had recreated inside the refugee camp. 00:05:04.440 --> 00:05:12.691 Nduwayezu actually saw with his own eyes his  mother and his father killed with machetes. 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:20.384 His reaction was to remain silent for  approximately four weeks, he couldn’t speak. 00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:30.198 For me, the heart of an exhibition  is really the spirit of the artist. 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:35.134 The spirit of what he’s trying to communicate. 00:05:38.680 --> 00:05:43.440 I want people to...to walk in that  space and to feel that they have 00:05:43.440 --> 00:05:49.240 entered into a model of thinking  and of looking at the world. 00:05:55.160 --> 00:05:58.760 Coming back to...to Chile,  coming back as an artist is… 00:05:58.760 --> 00:06:01.023 is an incredibly moving experience. 00:06:10.418 --> 00:06:13.520 It was incredibly moving for me to  share my work for the first time 00:06:13.520 --> 00:06:15.381 with all of my friends and family. 00:06:16.200 --> 00:06:20.400 It was almost like starting from scratch, 00:06:20.400 --> 00:06:23.510 because they were experiencing  it for the first time. 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:31.365 It’s a very, very emotional  situation, incredibly emotional. 00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:39.290 At...at the age of five, my father decides to  move to this French island called Martinique. 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:42.699 And we lived there for ten marvelous years. 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:48.200 And then at the age of  fifteen, my father announces, 00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:49.520 okay, we’re going back. 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:55.427 And we moved back to Chile which  was during Allende’s period. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:07:00.547 And so we arrived in a...in  a country incredibly divided. 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:11.880 I’m so obsessed with… 00:07:11.880 --> 00:07:16.614 with communicating a very specific  amount of information to the audience. 00:07:19.720 --> 00:07:26.162 And uh, one very important  element is the economy of means. 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:38.937 Muxima is divided in ten cantos. 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:50.298 And each canto in itself  is...is structured as a haiku, 00:07:51.200 --> 00:07:53.229 which is a short Japanese poem. 00:07:54.320 --> 00:07:57.720 What, what fascinated me about haikus is the… 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:05.495 the capacity for fifteen, seventeen  words to communicate an entire world. 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:12.840 My way of thinking is pretty Cartesian  and it’s coming from my French education. 00:08:12.840 --> 00:08:14.635 I’m...I’m very logical. 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:17.120 To make sense for me is… 00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:19.916 is a very essential aspect of the work. 00:09:04.440 --> 00:09:06.908 I was incredibly shy when I was a kid, 00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:09.680 so my father took me to a psychiatrist 00:09:09.680 --> 00:09:16.400 and the psychiatrist gave him two or three choices to help me to overcome this shyness. 00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:20.000 So he brought me home a little box of magic. 00:09:21.574 --> 00:09:25.000 And, and I got into this  world and I became a magician. 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:34.144 And to be a magician helped  me to confront the audience. 00:09:34.480 --> 00:09:41.888 And to do something when they knew that I was  trying to hide something, but they don’t see it. 00:09:42.602 --> 00:09:44.115 What they see is the magic. 00:09:47.242 --> 00:09:51.629 Before moving into filmmaking I was  an actor and I did a lot of theater. 00:09:52.280 --> 00:09:54.069 I wrote plays and I directed plays. 00:09:55.160 --> 00:09:57.909 And so when you combine the world of magic, 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:03.760 the world of theater and so  those two things plus my… 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:07.560 my background as an architect,  everything is there. 00:10:07.560 --> 00:10:12.829 And, and that mise-en-scène that you  see is really a result of those things. 00:10:16.040 --> 00:10:19.201 I had forgotten about this stuff. (LAUGHS) 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:29.821 I think it’s important to incorporate a  beauty in the work because it’s part of life. 00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:35.000 But that doesn’t mean we  should just stay with beauty. 00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:40.852 And we should not be afraid sometimes  to confront beauty and horror 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:46.134 and LET ONE HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM  probably does that in a very direct way. 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:51.320 And it’s based on a Chinese poem that Mao used to… 00:10:51.320 --> 00:10:53.920 to throw a campaign asking intellectuals to 00:10:53.920 --> 00:10:57.439 participate in the life of  the revolution in the ‘50s. 00:10:57.880 --> 00:11:02.572 “Let one hundred flowers bloom, let one  hundred schools of thought contend.” 00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:09.520 After one year, because intellectuals  were suspicious of Mao’s intentions, 00:11:09.520 --> 00:11:12.945 they finally gave in and  they started speaking out. 00:11:13.680 --> 00:11:15.944 And of course they gave great new ideas, 00:11:16.280 --> 00:11:19.393 but they were contrary to  the ideals of the revolution. 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:22.407 And then their voices were suppressed. 00:11:25.177 --> 00:11:31.341 So here this piece is standing as a metaphor for  the struggle of intellectuals all over the world. 00:11:32.286 --> 00:11:37.840 Here we have a hundred flowers being  submitted to contradictory forces. 00:11:37.840 --> 00:11:40.749 On one hand they are being  fed with water and light 00:11:41.400 --> 00:11:48.720 and on the other hand they are being killed  by strong industrials winds and strong cold. 00:11:48.720 --> 00:11:51.400 These flowers will be dying continuously. 00:11:51.400 --> 00:11:52.957 We will keep replacing them. 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:58.880 And what connects this particular work  that was shown in Rome for the first time 00:11:58.880 --> 00:12:05.580 with the Santiago situation is that instead of a  video that we had in Rome with Gramsci’s grave, 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:09.717 here we are opening a window into the Alameda. 00:12:10.640 --> 00:12:14.080 We are less than a hundred  meters away from the La Moneda, 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:18.560 from the presidential palace where our  socialist president, Salvador Allende, 00:12:18.560 --> 00:12:22.468 was killed during the military  coup by General Pinochet. 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:29.160 This piece is really making a link with  the immediate history of our country. 00:12:33.880 --> 00:12:40.560 By opening a little window into this gallery  that happened to be on the Alameda uh, 00:12:40.560 --> 00:12:42.880 a world of connection is created. 00:12:42.880 --> 00:12:47.080 And...and that I think is extraordinary,  the power of art to do those things, 00:12:47.080 --> 00:12:51.656 to create connections, to make  bridges and that fascinates me.